Meta

Further reflections

Culture

In a world that passes judgement
on people for what they do,
which labels by occupation,
it cannot understand
the philosophy of ‘To Be’.
One was never good
at God and Games
and took the snide asides and sneers
of horrible little Englishmen –
fogeys like their fathers.

One doesn’t catch the cattle-wagon
so that stay-at-home mothers
could boast to other silly cows –
in gross exaggeration –
of their sons’ and daughters’
allocated living (which they hate),
or about their children’s town houses
in Battersea or Clapham
and basement constructions,
and grandchildren’s private schools.

What the act of writing and thinking
lacks in visibility
it possesses more in tangibility
than making it to Partner
or just mere Junior Associate.
Because, despite caustic condescension,
the writer has as their weapons
their pen and imagination,
and the list of names
of their enemies:

The put-downers and detractors,
the school contemporaries and masters,
and university rivals,
relatives and so-called family friends.
Their moniker becomes a character
who possesses perversions,
peculiar inclinations,
a most unpleasant person,
a villain most vile,
a psychopathic sociopath.

What was good for Waugh
is good enough for us;
our pen is our sword.
So to all those I know and have known
(and most of you are loathsome);
look out for your names –
you’ll become legends,
so people will laugh
when you telephone for service,
or make an application.

For the written word
Is the foundation
Of strength and power,
And for The Writer
The greatest revenge.

Reflections 4 is the fourth collection of haiku 5-7-5 verses in the Reflections series.

Reflections 4 fires further acerbic shots in some themes already explored in Reflections 1, 2 and 3, as well as new subjects such as: vulgar displays of ‘new’ wealth (Wasteland III), economic malaise and inequality (Economics IV), the supremacy of the right in UK politics and its harsh socio-economic consequences (Politics) , the poison that exits within families, or various members therein (Blood IV), the importance of culture and the futility of conforming to other people’s expectations rather than following one’s own path (Tangibility III), the lack of due process in an increasingly insecure world (Law and Justice), the savagery of English holidaymakers abroad (Home and Abroad III), love, loss and friendship (Friends, Lovers and Other Relationships IV), the life-and mind destroying daily ritual of commuting to work, especially by train from a far suburb into the Capital (Commuting III), the reality of sport for most people is the mediocrity of being a pub-going spectator (The Sporting Life IV), the myths and the fraud of the health and fitness industry (Health and Well-Being II), and the bigotry, fakery and fraud that is religion (Religion and Spirituality).

In Reflections 3, RC Clermont draws these haiku verses not from the Elements, Nature, or the Seasons in the ‘traditional’way, but from modern life, how we are all living a lie. The themes follow those in Reflections 1 and 2, including: global capitalism, economic, inequality, neo-liberalism, suburban greed, materialism and pretension, the English obsession with home-ownership, the pressure to conform, the importance of culture, literature and art instead of consumerism, commuting to a job one hates for poor pay, the toxicity of family life, love and friendship, the myths of sporting prowess and the golf and tennis ‘culture’ of Middle England.

Writer #2

Am I the world’s only person
To attain the conclusion
That there’s a differentiation
Between something for which one is drilled
And that in which one is fulfilled;
Between labouring at what one loathes,
And realizing what one loves;
That the former subsidises the latter,
Till the latter becomes the corpus,
And the former superfluous –
Though it’s a crime to be lettered
In these harsher times?